My Dog Doesn't Understand Me: MSP Sales Isn't An IT Job

By Jack Lawrence, Senior Content Writer, Mindmatrix

When you get a new dog, he doesn’t understand anything you say. “Not on the rug, Duke.” “Outside, Duke. Right now!” “ Let’s go for a ride in the car, Duke.”

For him it is all “blah, blah, blah, Duke, blah, blah, blah.” Since you don’t speak “dog,” you have a problem. You’ve got to get Duke to learn what those sounds mean, and treats and rewards are the way to get the job done.

This same situation too often occurs in technical sales when an MSP shows up at a prospect’s door trying to convince them of the need for managed services. The salesperson speaks “IT.”  “Mirrored servers, BYOD risks, site-to-site replication, malware.” It’s that same “blah, blah, blah.”

The only difference between your dog and a prospect is that Duke relies on you for dinner, treats, and shelter. He has a strong incentive to learn your language. The prospect doesn’t. There is no equivalent of a rawhide  treat in the world of MSP sales.

What’s the message here? To sell managed services, you need to speak the language of the target market, not your own. When the IT entrepreneur launches her MSP, she obviously has to branch out into sales to pull in the first clients. However, that may not be a good long-term selling strategy. The salesperson for an MSP needs to be able to empathize with the target market and speak their language, not IT. Here are some possible things to consider when developing the sales role within an MSP...

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